Lennon–McCartney

Lennon–McCartney (sometimes McCartney–Lennon) was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is the best known and most successful musical collaboration ever by records sold, with the Beatles selling over 600 million records worldwide as of 2004.[1] Between 5 October 1962 and 8 May 1970, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by the Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue.

Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise separate lyricist and composer,[2] both Lennon and McCartney wrote lyrics and music. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "eyeball to eyeball" as Lennon phrased.[3] Later, it was more common for one of the two credited authors to write all or most of a song with limited input from the other. By an agreement made before the Beatles became famous, Lennon and McCartney were credited equally with songs that either one of them wrote while their partnership lasted.

Lennon said the main intention of the Beatles' music was to communicate, and that, to this effect, he and McCartney had a shared purpose. Author David Rowley points out that at least half of all Lennon–McCartney lyrics have the words "you" and/or "your" in the first line.[10] In Lennon's 1980 Playboy interview, he said of the partnership,

[Paul] provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock 'n' roll. But, of course, when I think of some of my own songs—"In My Life", or some of the early stuff, "This Boy"—I was writing melody with the best of them.[11]

Historian Todd Compton has noted that there is some truth to Lennon's statement regarding McCartney's optimism. However, it does not tell the whole story, as some of McCartney's most characteristic songs are tragic, or express themes of isolation, such as "Yesterday", "She's Leaving Home", "Eleanor Rigby" or "For No One".[12]

Although Lennon and McCartney often wrote independently—and many Beatles songs are primarily the work of one or the other—it was rare that a song would be completed without some input from both writers. In many instances, one writer would sketch an idea or a song fragment and take it to the other to finish or improve; in some cases, two incomplete songs or song ideas that each had worked on individually would be combined into a complete song. Often one of the pair would add a middle eight or bridge section to the other's verse and chorus.[13]George Martin attributed the high quality of their songwriting to the friendly rivalry between the two.[14] This approach of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team—with elements of competitiveness and mutual inspiration as well as straightforward collaboration and creative merging of musical ideas—is often cited[by whom?] as a key reason for the Beatles' innovation and popular success.[citation needed]

As time went on, the songs increasingly became the work of one writer or the other, often with the partner offering up only a few words or an alternative chord. "A Day in the Life" is a notable and well-known example of a later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney, where a separate song fragment by McCartney ("Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head ...") was used to flesh out the middle of Lennon's composition ("I read the news today, oh boy ..."). "Hey Jude" is another example of a later McCartney song that had input from Lennon: while auditioning the song for Lennon, when McCartney came to the lyric "the movement you need is on your shoulder", McCartney assured Lennon that he would change the line—which McCartney felt was nonsensical—as soon as he could come up with a better lyric. Lennon advised McCartney to leave that line alone, saying it was one of the strongest in the song.[15]

When McCartney and Lennon met as teenagers and began writing songs together, they agreed that all songs written by them (whether individually or jointly) should be credited to both of them.[16] The precise date of the agreement is unknown; however, Lennon spoke in 1980 of an informal agreement between him and McCartney made "when we were fifteen or sixteen".[17] Two songs written (primarily by Lennon) in 1957, "Hello Little Girl" and "One After 909", were credited to the partnership when published in the following decade.[18] The earliest Beatles recording credited to Lennon–McCartney to be officially released is "You'll Be Mine", recorded at home in 1960 and included on Anthology 1 35 years later.[19]

By 1962, the joint credit agreement was in effect. From the time of the Beatles' first A&R audition in January that year, until Lennon's announcement in September 1969 that he was leaving the band, virtually all songs by McCartney or Lennon were published with joint credit. The only exceptions were a handful of the McCartney compositions released by other musicians (viz. "Woman" by Peter and Gordon in 1966, "Cat Call" by Chris Barber in 1967, and "Penina" by Carlos Mendes in 1969).[citation needed]

After the partnership had ended, Lennon and McCartney each gave multiple accounts of their individual contribution to each jointly credited song, and sometimes claimed full authorship. Often their memories of collaboration differed, but often their early and late interviews are in conflict.[20]

In 1977, Lennon said he authored the song and took the words from a circus poster.[21] In 2013, McCartney recalled spending an afternoon with Lennon writing the song based on the poster: "I read, occasionally, people say, 'Oh, John wrote that one.' I say, 'Wait a minute, what was that afternoon I spent with him, then, looking at this poster?'"[22]

Lennon described the song as co-written in 1965 interviews.[23] In late interviews, he claimed full authorship. McCartney stated to have helped on the "countermelody", estimating the song as "70–30" to Lennon.[24][25][26] In 1984, McCartney said "John and I wrote it at his house in Weybridge for the film [Help!]"[26]

In the 1997 biography Many Years from Now, McCartney recalled writing the music to "Eleanor Rigby" on a piano at Jane Asher's family home in Wimpole Street,[27] and then playing it to Donovan, who supported that the song lacked any serious lyrics at that point.[28] In 1972, Lennon said that he wrote 70 per cent of the lyrics,[29] but Pete Shotton, Lennon's childhood friend, remembered Lennon's contribution as being "absolutely nil".[30] In 1985, McCartney said that Lennon had contributed "about half a line" to the song, but elsewhere (including a 1966 interview) he describes finishing the song with more substantial collaboration with Lennon.[31] Harrison also contributed to this song. According to journalist Hunter Davies, the last verse was finished with all the Beatles giving suggestions in the studio.[32]

In 1977, when shown a list of songs Lennon claimed writing on for the magazine Hit Parader, McCartney disputed only "In My Life".[21] Lennon said that McCartney helped only with "the middle eight" (a short section) of the song.[33] McCartney said that he wrote the entire melody, taking inspiration from Smokey Robinson songs.[34] A 2018 study that used bag-of-words modelling (here notes and chord snippets rather than words) to analyze the song indicated that the music was entirely composed by Lennon. Based on the analysis, mathematician Keith Devlin reported a .018% probability of McCartney writing the song.[35]

Lennon said that McCartney's contribution was limited to "the way Ringo played the drums",[36] In Many Years from Now, McCartney said "we sat down and wrote it together ... give him 60 percent of it."[37]

McCartney claimed to have helped on the lyric, estimating the song as "80–20" to Lennon.[38] In his comment for the song's entry in Hit Parader, Lennon did not acknowledge any contributions from McCartney.[21]

In October 1962, the Beatles released their first single in the UK, "Love Me Do", credited to "Lennon–McCartney". However, on their next three releases the following year (the single "Please Please Me", the Please Please Me LP, and the single "From Me to You"), the credit was given as "McCartney–Lennon".[39] With the "She Loves You" single, released in August 1963, the credit reverted to "Lennon–McCartney", and all subsequent official Beatles singles and albums list "Lennon–McCartney" (UK) or "J. Lennon/​P. McCartney" (US) as the author of songs written by the two.

In 1976 McCartney's band Wings released their live album Wings over America with songwriting credits for five Beatles songs reversed to place McCartney's name first. Neither Lennon nor Yoko Ono publicly "voiced a word of disapproval about it".[40] Many years after Lennon's death however, in the late 1990s, McCartney and Ono became involved in a dispute over the credit order.[41] McCartney's 2002 live album, Back in the U.S., also used the credit "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" for all of the Beatles songs.[42] When Ono objected to McCartney's request for the reversed credit to be used for the 1965 song "Yesterday", McCartney said that he and Lennon had agreed in the past that the credits could be reversed, if either of them wanted to, on any future releases.[citation needed] In 2003, he relented, saying, "I'm happy with the way it is and always has been. Lennon and McCartney is still the rock 'n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of – in the order it has always been."[41] An in-depth analysis of the legal issues was the subject of a 66-page article in the Pepperdine Law Review in 2006.[43]

Lennon–McCartney, as well as other British Invasion songwriters, inspired changes to the music industry because they were bands that wrote and performed their own music. This trend threatened the professional songwriters that dominated the American music industry. Ellie Greenwich, a Brill Building songwriter, said, “When the Beatles and the entire British Invasion came in, we were all ready to say, ‘Look, it’s been nice, there’s no more room for us… It’s now the self-contained group- makes, certain type of material. What do we do?"[48]

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership makes up the majority of the Beatles' catalogue. The first two UK studio albums included 12 cover tunes and 15 Lennon–McCartney songs,[49][50] with one track ("Don't Bother Me") credited to George Harrison.[50] Their third UK album, A Hard Day's Night (1964), is the only original Beatles album made up entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions.[51] The next album released, Beatles for Sale (1964), included six covers and eight Lennon–McCartney originals.[52] The subsequent release, Help! (1965), had two covers and two Harrison compositions along with ten Lennon–McCartney tracks; it was the last Beatles album to feature a non-original composition until Let It Be, which included an arrangement of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae". Among the songs in this post-Help! output, Harrison contributed between one and four songs per album, and Starr wrote two songs in total and received a joint credit with Lennon and McCartney for a third ("What Goes On"). In addition, "Flying" and "Dig It" were credited to all four Beatles. The rest of the catalogue came from Lennon and McCartney.

Lennon and McCartney gave songs to Starr to sing, and to Harrison before he started writing his own material. As for the songs they kept for themselves, each partner mostly sang his own composition, often with the other providing harmonies, or they shared lead vocal. If each contributed a fragment to make a whole song, he might sing his portion, as in the case of "I've Got a Feeling" and "A Day in the Life". "Every Little Thing" is a rare example of a Lennon–McCartney song in which one member of the partnership was primary composer (McCartney) but the other sang lead vocal (Lennon).[53][54] McCartney sings in unison with Lennon on the verses, but Lennon's vocal is more prominent. McCartney sings the high harmony on the chorus.

In January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years.[55][56] McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017.[57]

Several songs credited to Lennon–McCartney were originally released by bands other than the Beatles, especially those managed by Brian Epstein. Recording a Lennon–McCartney song helped launch new performing-artists' careers. Many of the recordings below were included on the 1979 compilation album The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away.[58] Beatles versions of some of these were recorded; some were not released until after their split, on compilations such as Live at the BBC (1994) and The Beatles Anthology (1995–96).

Although composed alone by Lennon, McCartney was credited as co-composer on the single appearance and on Lennon's compilation albums Shaved Fish and The John Lennon Collection. The credit was revised in the 1990s to cite only Lennon.

Note that several songs released during this period were credited solely to Paul McCartney:

The following compositions are believed to have been written by Lennon and McCartney, but never officially released by the Beatles or any other artist except as noted below. Many have appeared on Beatles bootlegs, an exception being "Carnival of Light".[63] The list of unreleased songs includes some of the earliest Lennon–McCartney joint works dating back to the Quarrymen, the group that evolved into the Beatles.[64] Several of these songs were revisited during the Get Back sessions of early 1969.[65]

Improvised studio jam satirising Enoch Powell's claim in a 1968 speech that immigration into the UK would cause a race war. Sung by McCartney during the Get Back sessions on 9 January 1969.[71][87][88]

My Imagination

1969

Improvised studio jam sung by McCartney; performed during the Get Back sessions on 6 January 1969.[89][90]

"Song of Love"

1969

Sung by McCartney; performed during the Get Back sessions on 14 January 1969.[91]